A blog about our life on the family farm. Lots of animals, chickens, hair sheep, dexter cows, horses, border collies, alpaca. Read about how the farm life is tackled by a full time working couple.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Chicken Spreadsheet

The fabulous chicken spreadsheet results!!! I tried to get a copy cut and pasted here, but it was so small you would not have been able to read it. So I will summarize. I have taken some liberties with how I calculate some of the values. Meaning, when I have baby chicks and for the 6 months it takes them to start laying, I include that feed cost with the laying hens feed. This throws off my feed/egg calculation, but it is in reality how much I am feeding the chicks. I don't count the chicks as productive until they start laying. So drum roll please...

For January 2010, I had 9 hens laying, collected 3.2 eggs/day for a 36% productivity. They consumed 1 pound of food for every egg collected and it cost me $0.27/egg or $3.24/doz to produce (now I only charge $2.50/doz). for a loss of $8.38 for the month.

For February 2010, I had 11 hens laying, collected 4.7 eggs/day for a 50% productivity. They consumed 1.15 pounds of food for every egg collected and it cost me $0.32/egg or $3.84/doz to produce (now I only charge $2.50/doz). for a loss of $16.97 for the month.

For March 2010, I had 22 hens laying, collected 8.5 eggs/day for a 39% productivity. They consumed 0.76 pounds of food for every egg collected and it cost me $0.15/egg or $1.80/doz to produce (now I only charge $2.50/doz). for a loss of $72.49 for the month, I purchased 24 babies and bought them 50# food and a heat lamp bulb, so it drove me more negative for the month.

This month should start to pan out on the income side. The chickens are free ranging on the bugs and greens. My feed costs should drop dramatically and my production should jump. I have 33 hens laying now. Now if I can only keep the predators away. I have been losing about 1/3 of my chickens every year to predators. I refuse to keep them locked up, which causes other problems, but really lowers the quality of the egg. Not to mention our bugs just get out of control in the house. The chickens control the bugs, the cats control the mice and hopefully the sheep will start controlling the weeds (once I get all the fence built...).